GRAVEYARD MOUNTAIN HOME

It is an interesting concept to take a public domain movie and slow it down to half speed, and then write a soundtrack over it. This is what Kevin Moore (Dream Theatre, OSI) has done on this album. Sounded interesting enough to me to investigate further. Other Chroma Key albums that I have heard were too plain and I have never been a fan of the vocals in OSI, but the concept sounded interesting enough.

What you get here are some electronic musings, some with vocals and some without. I appreciate what he was trying to do here, but for some reason, these tracks just don't have the same effect on me as, say, listening to a Vangelis or Tangerine Dream album. This is basically Kevin's take on that type of music. There is some experimentation, ambience, and so on, but what comes out of this venture is some pretty straightforward electronic music that comes close to space or psychedelic rock. There is some beauty here, but there is a lot of repetition that doesn't really prove anything. It seems, for the most part at least, there is a lot of sound, but not a lot of substance. It sounds like a first try at electronic music, even though it is well produced, it sounds a bit like what it is....someone trying their hand at electronica.

I suppose I'm not that big of a fan of Kevin's style, but I'm telling it from my own "audio viewpoint". The vocals once again, don't do anything for me, and the stylings here just aren't adventurous enough. It is at least a good attempt at expanding his sound, but in trying to create something new, at least with this attempt, it just seems he tried and didn't quite make it.

I had hopes for this one after reading about it and being a fan of explorative and inventive music. Maybe, with time, things will improve, but I'm still not convinced that Chroma Key or OSI is top notch material. At least, Kevin has the sense of adventure with this one. 3 stars...because there is a lot of music out there that is so much better, but at least he is trying.